by Thomas Emson
“That was Dad,” she said. “He wants you to . . . to go over and help him have a word with Spencer. Don’t be cruel to him, Charlie. And don’t let my dad . . . you know . . . ”
“I’ll go over and supervise,” said Faultless.
He rose, reluctant to leave her. A knock on the door stopped him. Tash opened it. Don Wilks stood outside, sneering.
Chapter 91
INNER MONSTER
“I am not the man I was, Spencer,” said Hanbury, “but it would be very easy for me to be him again. He hangs about in my head, son. He keeps asking if he can come out and play again. But I says to him, ‘No, you ain’t coming out, old Roy, Jesus is in my heart now, and he’s my friend.’ Did you give them Sharpleys the games console back? Thought not. Maybe if you had, all this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Don’t hurt me, Mr Hanbury.”
“I cannot promise that, son.”
Spencer had been told to sit quietly on a blanket in Faultless’s flat. Hanbury had given him water and some bread. “Jail food, son, so you get used to it.” After he’d eaten, he’d fallen asleep. When he woke up, Hanbury rang Tash to tell her.
“Send Charlie over,” he’d said. “We can play good villain, bad villain with Spencer. Or maybe just bad villain, bad villain.”
As he waited for Faultless, Hanbury thought about his former apprentice.
The boy had been ruthless. Hanbury’s lieutenants had marked Faultless out from the time he’d been eleven or twelve. Most lads of that age, you had to discipline. You scared the shit out of them so they learned to stay under the Old Bill’s radar. Not Charlie Faultless. He knew how to keep out of trouble while causing as much as possible.
Hanbury started using him to deal drugs and dole out threats when the lad was fourteen. Charlie knew nothing about it at the time—he was dealing for someone on Hanbury’s payroll, that was all.
But Faultless really made a name for himself a few months after he was first recruited, when he saved Tash from a pervert.
After that, Faultless entered the fold. He was a Hanbury lieutenant. He was a future Face. And because Hanbury had no sons, he was a possible heir.
But then the Graveney murder happened.
Hanbury shook his head now, the pain of having to exile Faultless sapping his strength.
And then he comes back, thought Hanbury. And the gates of hell open wide.
At first it seemed that Charlie Faultless was a changed man. But now bad was coming out of him again—like sweat. He was shedding his respectable skin. His eyes were darkening. He sported that grimace he’d worn as a youth. He was always menacing, but now he reeked of something else. He reeked of malevolence.
All men have a beast in them, Hanbury knew that. But most could control their inner monster. They had different ways of doing it—he’d let Jesus into his heart, while Faultless trained his sights on a different career.
But when the call came, the beast would rear up. The seed of barbarism in a man’s heart sprouted again.
“You ever heard of Charlie Faultless, Spencer?” said Hanbury now. “I knew Charlie many years ago, when he was your age. You think you’re tough? You don’t know Faultless. He was a right cunt. Still is. I can see it in his eyes. And I’m telling you, he ain’t got Christ in his heart. He ain’t got nothing but darkness in him.”
Spencer whimpered.
Hanbury went to get a sack that lay under the desk. He’d brought it with him when they’d smuggled Spencer into the flat. Its contents would be used to scare the teenager into talking.
Hanbury picked up the sack. He reached inside and brought out the python. He draped it over his shoulders. The reptile writhed. Its skin was cool and smooth on Hanbury’s nape.
Spencer cried.
Hanbury wondered where Faultless was but thought he’d get the session underway.
“Please don’t,” begged Spencer.
Someone knocked on the door.
Faultless, thought Hanbury. He went to answer it, the snake still around his shoulders, but as he opened the door he thought, Why doesn’t Charlie have his key?
The hammer cracked Hanbury in the middle of his forehead.
Chapter 92
21ST CENTURY POLICING
Do Wilks said, “I followed you here, son. Proper, old-fashioned police work. Followed you. What happened to that little girl you were carrying, eh?”
“You could’ve checked before you hauled me away, Wilks,” said Faultless, handcuffed in the back of the police car.
“Yeah, I don’t really give that much of a shit. Was her mate got killed, weren’t it? What was her name?”
“You’re the detective.”
“I’m a busy man. Trying to catch crooks and killers. Victims ain’t my problem. We got liaison officers and all that politically correct bullshit for them, Faultless.”
“Of course. I forgot—you being the face of 21st century policing and all.”
Wilks chuckled.
Faultless caught the driver watching him in the rear-view mirror. The copper’s eyes were wide with shock. They were saying, Wilks has got nothing to do with me, mate.
For a while, no one spoke. Faultless kept his head down, thinking about things. Mostly who he was and where he’d come from. How he could find Lew. Who Jack really was and why he’d told Faultless, “You’re like me.”
He shivered. His mind went round and round, over the same questions that had haunted him for days.
He’d assumed Wilks was taking him to the closest nick, which was Brick Lane. Thinking that, he never bothered to keep an eye on the roads. But when he lifted his head to stretch his neck, he noticed they were nowhere near Brick Lane.
So he asked, “Where the fuck are we?”
Again, the driver gave him a look and this time his eyes said, This ain’t my doing, mate—I’m following orders.
Shit, thought Faultless.
“Stop the car, Khan,” said Wilks.
“Wilks, what the fuck—”
“Shut it, Faultless.”
“Sir,” said Khan. “I’m not—”
“And you shut it, too, Khan. Everyone fucking shut it. Everyone do as they’re fucking told. Khan, you fucking remember what I got.”
In the rear-view mirror, Khans eyes told Faultless, I’m fucked.
Khan pulled the car up on the pavement outside some rusting, metal gates. A sign on the gates said the site was part of a renewal project. It was an old industrial estate. Grey buildings lurked behind the gates. They flanked rutted roads. Pavements were overgrown with grass and weeds. Beer cans rolled about in the wind.
Wilks dragged Faultless out of the car and marched him towards the gate.
“I like fucking with people,” said the detective. “Khan, he’s a Muslim, see. Fucking loads of them in the Met these days. It’s a fucking shambles. Thing is, he’s also a homo. Which is classic. Typical fucking Met these days—queers and Pakis.”
“So you’re fucking blackmailing him, Wilks. Ever the cunt.”
Wilks opened the gates. They screeched. He shoved Faultless, who stumbled forward. He heard the gates clank shut.
Wilks pushed him, making him walk up the road. It was a ghost-town of a place. Creaking gates. Clanking doors. Dark windows showing gloomy interiors.
They came to the edge of the first warehouse. Wire fencing hemmed in a courtyard just round the corner. Faultless sensed something. He heard laughter. Maybe it was the ghosts. But when he came round the corner, he saw the men.
Four of them. Coppers in uniform with their sleeves rolled up, tapping their batons on their palms in anticipation.
“Two of these fellas, you know,” said Wilks.
They were the two filth Faultless had beat up behind the lock-ups.
“The other two are pleased to meet you, Charlie.”
The coppers sneered. They b
ristled. Their hate showed.
Faultless thought, What have I got to lose? and he swung his handcuffed wrists in an arc, smashing Wilks in the face. Blood came from the detective’s nose. He stumbled away, arms flailing.
The four cops legged it out of the courtyard towards him. Faultless tried to do a runner, but he stumbled.
He heard them behind him, their rage hot on his neck.
And when the first baton strike laid him out, he knew he could do nothing but cover up and take a beating.
Chapter 93
BORN OF JACKALS OR WOMEN
Spencer knew he was going to have to die. He was dead the moment he listened to that voice in his head telling him to kill Jay-T. But how could he not listen? It had been so tempting, that voice. It had been demanding. It told him to pick up a brick and smash Jay-T’s skull. It had called for blood, and Spencer had given it blood.
And now he was going to pay for everything he’d done. He’d suffer because he’d let Jack down. He’d betrayed him. He’d shown weakness.
There’s always a judgment, he told himself now. And maybe that was a good thing. Life seemed pointless. He’d seen too many terrible things to want to live on.
His heart had been corrupted. Not that it was pure in the first place. It had always been bad. But it had never been evil. And now, Spencer knew, it was full of sin. It was a black, pulsing monster in his chest.
He was glad to go with Hanbury when they raided the cavern and rescued Jasmine. He showed unwillingness—just so Jack thought he’d put up a fight. But Jack probably knew the truth. Jack knew most things.
Hanbury had told him to sit quietly in the corner, where Spencer eventually fell asleep. He’d been exhausted. It had been a relief to get away from the bloodshed.
But the respite was brief.
Charlie Faultless was coming, and that was bad news.
Spencer had heard about him. Geezers talked about him in the pub. Dealers muttered his name. Spencer’s mum said he was evil. “He was cursed, with his different colored eyes,” she’d warn. “Best thing ever happened to Barrowmore is that he disappeared. Evil, he was, evil.” And then she’d lean in and whisper, “They said he wasn’t born of a woman, Spencer. They said he was born of a jackal, and you know what that means, darlin’.”
Spencer had no idea what it meant. And he had no clue what “not born of a woman” meant, either.
All he knew was Charlie Faultless had returned, and he was on his way over.
Whether he was born of jackals or women, it made no difference to Spencer. The guy was scary.
When Mr Hanbury went to the door with that snake coiling around his neck, Spencer really started to worry.
He tried to think of ways to escape. If Hanbury and Faultless came in now, he might have to make a run for it. He quaked with fear. They’d catch him easily. But he had to try. Just get away from all this. He’d hole up with his cousin in Stepney for a while. Wait until Barrowmore calmed down. Until Jack went away.
He rolled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, rocking back and forth.
But Jack wouldn’t go away. If he killed a fifth, like he said he was going to, then he’d have the whole of London at his mercy.
And that meant Stepney.
Spencer whimpered. Nowhere was safe. Anywhere you looked, you had either Jack or Faultless or Hanbury—men born of jackals or women, maybe. Men born to kill. Not like him. He was born to hide, and that’s what he should have done right after he’d stolen the Sharpleys PS3.
But now it was too late.
And he knew that for certain when he heard scuffling from the hallway and then someone stumbling.
Mr Hanbury staggered back into the living room. The snake writhed around his neck.
Blood ran down his face. Spencer gasped in horror.
Mr Hanbury fell to his knees. The snake coiled. Spencer nearly went over to help Mr Hanbury. But then a figure entered the room, and when Spencer saw him, the desire to help went away very quickly.
It was Hallam Buck with a hammer in his hand.
But not the Hallam Buck Spencer had known.
This was a very different looking Hallam Buck.
His face was gray. There was a gaping wound in his cheek. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, which were wide and glittery. His jaw drooped, and something that looked like tar filled his mouth, and it oozed down his chin. Sweat drenched his body, and his clothes were saturated. His groin was bloody. It was a black-red blood. Blood from deep inside. Blood from your heart. His trousers at his crotch had been torn away, and through the blood Spencer saw flaps of skin hang like frayed ribbons.
Hallam Buck had been castrated.
Now the neutered child-killer raised his hammer and went for Mr Hanbury, who managed to kick out a leg and parry Hallam’s attack.
Mr Hanbury was on all fours. He was looking at Spencer. His face was a mask of blood.
He said, “Get out of here and find Charlie Faultless.”
The snake wound itself around Mr Hanbury’s neck. Its black eyes fixed on Spencer, and it seemed to smile. The snake tightened its body.
Now Hallam had regained his balance. He came again with his hammer. The tarry liquid dribbled from his mouth. He smashed the hammer into Mr Hanbury’s skull. The old villains eyes rolled back. He fell on his face.
The snake smiled at Spencer as it strangled Mr Hanbury.
Hallam straddled the dying man. He started to beat him with his hammer.
Spencer cried and shivered. He wet himself. The stink of piss triggered something in him, and he quickly crawled away, keeping tight to the wall. He tried not to look, but from the corner of his eyes he could see.
He could see Hallam like a pendulum hammering Mr Hanbury, the sound of bone cracking and brain mushing making him sick.
He could see the snake’s black eyes follow him as he made his escape. The serpent hissed and Spencer was sure the animal was speaking to him and it was saying, “I am the lord who gapes . . . I am the lantern of the tomb . . . I am the moth eating at the law . . . ”
Chapter 94
I AM NOT OWED GOOD FORTUNE
Judgment, Faultless thought. This is judgment.
He hurt all over. He bled from his mouth, his scalp, and his nose. He bled inside too. He was sure of it. He felt death creep up on him.
For years, he thought he’d got away with everything. He thought he’d got away with murder. Tony Graveney’s murder.
But justice had been pursuing him. It had been a predator, lurking in the shadows, waiting for him to make a mistake.
And he made one.
He’d come home.
He lay on the bunk in the police cell and put his arm across his eyes. His head ached. He worried he might have a fractured skull. Although his attackers had focused their batons on his body, a few blows cracked him on the nut.
He vaguely recalled them dragging him along the ground and throwing him into a car. He remembered feeling sick. He might have puked. He had a bad taste in his mouth when he came around. He had blood in there, too. Blood and dirt.
When they took him into the police station, he heard Wilks say, “This fella’s been beaten up. He’s drunk. People are looking for him. We’re booking him in for his own safety.”
He had looked up at the desk sergeant, and the woman’s face had been creased with concern, and she’d said, “He needs a doctor, now.”
Wilks had said, “I’ve got one coming.”
Next thing Faultless knew, he was in a cell. Some bloke with bad breath was in his face, shining a light in his eyes.
Wilks’s voice nearby was saying, “Give him a cursory glance, Doc. And tell that cow on the custody desk that he’s all right.”
The bloke with bad breath had said, “Chief Superintendent Wilks, this man is gravely in need of hospital treatment, and—”
&n
bsp; “And you, Doc, will be gravely in need of a divorce lawyer and a new reputation when I accidentally give the press the file on you and those under-aged Lithuanian prostitutes.”
“I . . . I thought they were eighteen, all of them.”
“The missus would be all right with that, then, will she?”
Then Wilks and the bloke with bad breath had gone and Faultless dreamed of being trapped in a furnace.
He woke up feeling sick. He had no phone, no watch. He had no idea what the time was. How long he’d been here. How damaged he was.
Again he thought, Judgment. This is what I had coming.
It was just a shame that Wilks had been his judge. But you had no choice. If you sin, you don’t get to choose your punishment—or your punisher.
He’d always known this day would come. He’d never felt he deserved the luck he’d had since leaving England.
Three years before, he’d won one of the US’s most prestigious journalism awards. He’d written a piece about two Detroit drug dealers, murdered by a police hit squad. It resulted in four policemen being jailed. But even as he accepted the award and his peers applauded him, a tiny voice in his head was saying, “You shouldn’t be here, you fraud—you should be in jail with those killer cops, rotting.”
Even on his wedding day to the lavish Cora-Marie Bryant, a former Miss Boston and a New York media lawyer, he was thinking, This is not what I deserve.
Two years later, when Cora-Marie left him because he spent all his time on assignments, he felt he did deserve to lose her.
I am not owed happiness, he told himself. I am not owed good fortune.
So every time it came his way, he did his best to send it packing.
Soon after Cora-Marie divorced him, Faultless had decided to come back to England. He had to face his demons. He had to face his judgment. But if he were going to be punished, at least he could get some vengeance.
So he would investigate his mother’s death, Rachel’s death, and write a book about the killings. He would find the killer and name him. And then, if the old Charlie insisted, he would punish the murderer as well.